So, if you have to say “again,” you’re probably not really famous. More like, almost-heard-of-ish. But still, a girl can dream. Last night I went to the launch party for Gunter Magazine which featured an article about me. A man I had met at one of my art shows came up to me and asked me to sign my picture in the magazine, so I totally got to pretend I was very important. The first one I signed with “Thanks for the support” and my signature. But then he wanted me to sign another one, and I didn’t want to repeat myself, so I went with “Embrace your inner platypus” and my signature. Good, sound advice, I think.

I’m terrible at events like this, because strangers intimidate me. If they talk to me, I’m fine, but if I have to initiate the conversation I feel like I’m going to die. And not just die, but die in a really horrible way, like being devoured by rabid Tasmanian devils*. I’m not sure that the devils being rabid would really make being devoured by them any more horrible, but it sounds more dramatic, so I’m going with it. Luckily, several people were braver than me and came up to chat so I got to do a little networking without having to leave my seat. And more importantly, I had tempura asparagus for the first time, and when I tasted it, I’m pretty sure the heavens opened up, rays of light came down, and I heard angels singing. So there’s that.

Here are 2 of the pages from the magazine. There were 2 more pages of images of my paintings, but scanning those in is more energy than I’m willing to exert.

*Which reminds me, do you want to hear something totally fucked up? A huge portion of the Tasmanian devil population has been wiped out by a parasitic cancer. They get it by biting each other. Yes, you read that right. They give each other cancer by biting each other. That’s some serious zombie shit, right there. And what’s even crazier is that scientists think it was the same tumor* getting passed from one devil to the next. Although there are now 4 different tumors which means the damn thing is mutating and evolving and becoming more virulent. See? Didn’t I tell you it was totally fucked up?

Also, there’s a tumor that’s been passed from dog to dog for “somewhere between 200 and 2500 years,” making it “the oldest continuous animal cell line in existence on planet earth.” It’s one individual parasite that’s lived for a reeeeeeeaaaaallly long time. Radio Lab did a piece on it and it’s fascinating: http://www.radiolab.org/story/91714-devil-tumors/

*OMG, I just did a random thought off of a random thought. Every time I hear the word tumor, I hear Arnold Schwarzenegger saying, “It’s not a tumor” in Kindergarden Cop. Damn you, Arnold!

P.S. How did a post about me being in a magazine and going to a launch party end up being about zombie cancer? Sometimes I worry about me.